Needles in medical history : an exhibition at the Wellcome Trust History of Medicine Gallery, April 1998 / Ken Arnold [and others].

Date:
[1998?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: Needles in medical history : an exhibition at the Wellcome Trust History of Medicine Gallery, April 1998 / Ken Arnold [and others]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Exhibits 4.1 (a) Enema syringe in plastic. Late nineteenth century. [Illustrated] (b) Large enema syringe in ivory. French. Eighteenth century. [Illustrated] (c) Enema syringe in brass made by Arnold and Sons. England. Late nineteenth century. [Illustrated] (d) A 'modern' physician compares the size of his syringe with an old physician's clyster. Photomechanical reproduction of a lithograph by Jules-Abel Faivre. 1902 The cartoon appears in an issue of L'Assiette au Beurre devoted to 'Les medecins'. The man holding the syringe comments that his instrument is not for the same side [of the body]. The syringe has only relatively recently been used in association with a hollow needle to deliver anaesthetics, drugs and vaccines, and to extract blood. Before the advent of hypo- dermics in the mid-nineteenth century, the medical employment of syringes was most commonly to apply an enema - the introduction of a liquid into the rectum, (a) loaned by the Science Museum - A606171; (b) A606599; (c) A626202; (d) Iconographic Collections - cat. no. 17071 4.2 (a) Intradermal Calipers and Syringes... Arnold & Sons catalogue. 1938. (b) Fritz Freienstein, Improvements Connected with Injection Syringes and the Like. London, 1896. (c) Piston-action syringe in glass and vulcanite. Late nineteenth cen- tury? (d) Range of modern plastic hypodermic syringes Freienstein's patented innovations for 'injection syringes' related to the mechanism by which the needle of a hypodermic was attached to the cylinder. The Arnold & Sons catalogue indicates that a 20-cc serum syringe cost £1:13s in 1938. Today, syringes tend to be made of plastic, while the needles are mostly disposable, being thrown away after a single use. Modern Medicine collections - (a) V:W0162 1938 A75i; (b) patents (unbound) 1896.12677; loaned by the Science Museum - (c) A629124; (d) supplied by Sherwood Davis & Geek 4.3 Sir George Buckston Browne's walking stick. Nineteenth century To all appearances a relatively ordinary silver-topped walking stick, upon opening, both the handle and the stick become a doctor's Lilliputian arsenal. The handle holds a tiny hypo- dermic syringe in a silver case, drug capsules and a lancet with tortoiseshell handle, whilst the shaft of the cane holds assorted phials. Although undoubtedly a novelty item, other early medical walking sticks are known to have housed a nurse's pulse timer, a doctor's pomander and a midwife's baby scale. Non-medical novelty canes were made to disguise pen and ink, maps, liquor flasks, watches, swords, daggers and opium pipes. loaned by The Royal College of Surgeons of England